want to legalize city chickens in Vancouver BC Metro Area (esp. Surrey

[HeatherHillary]

Hello All,

We recently moved to Surrey (a suburb of Vancouver BC), British Columbia, Canada, from Portland, Oregon. Urban Chickens are very popular, legal, and safe in Portland, and they are not legal yet in most of the Vancouver BC Metro Area. I am trying to get people together to try to change the bylaws in these communities to allow city chickens. Please help me round up anyone who wants to help make city chickens legal in Surrey, Vancouver, Burnaby, and other cities in urban BC! Lets blog, meet, petition, write to newspapers, go to city council meetings, and get the bylaws changed!

If you would like to join our fight, or have an ideas for us, please contact me at [email protected].

Thank you!

 

[kitmik]

A few years late on this reply...hope you are still out there. I too live in Surrey and want chickens in my backyard (1/4 acre). Any luck with Surrey City Hall?

 

[Tomloveschickens]

Hi Heather,
we last talked 2 years ago. By law officers are once again harassing us for our 4 hens and have given us 7 days to remove it. This is despite he approval of my only neighbor. I am really having a nervous breakdown, dealing with them. I am seriously thinking of challenging the law in court, but need support.

 

[mwisejsj]

a little late to the party, but another Surrey, BC resident willing to fight for chickens..

 

[EsoBOFH]

Definitely here to support and back-up anyone else in Surrey.

 

[EsoBOFH]

Hi Heather,
we last talked 2 years ago. By law officers are once again harassing us for our 4 hens and have given us 7 days to remove it. This is despite he approval of my only neighbor. I am really having a nervous breakdown, dealing with them. I am seriously thinking of challenging the law in court, but need support.

Can you tell me how it is that they found out about your chickens? I'm hoping that i'm keeping things on the "down low" and the guy behind me has chickens as well.. he has a rooster that is constantly crowing, and i'm considering having a talk with him about removing it so he's not bringing attention to either of us. How were you found out?

 

[mwisejsj]

I have neighbours with chickens and all my neighbours know and approve of my chickens, so I'm not worried about them saying anything, but I worry about others.

 

[bacchi123]

I just got involved with villagevancouver. Please check them out (www.villagevancouver.ca). They are part of an international movement for autonomy including food autonomy and security - e.g., who knows what they feed the chickens and sell us in the name of food, not to mention the issues of animal cruelty, potential diseases like the bird flu, environmental impacts, etc. They just had an event this past Sunday where they showcased backyard chicken coops among other things. It was one of their star attractions especially popular with kids and families.

If you are interested in this and other similar issues and would like to join together to support our rights to decent food and life, etc. let's get together and decide what we can do. We can share our knowledge, experience, and resources and then join forces in a network to accomplish something even if it means eventually changing the laws. But we need more support and can use other community related issues such as food autonomy and security as well as broader issues to leverage for change. I am trying to organize a meeting here in Surrey to address such issues in the next 1-2 weeks. If interested please leave a note in the villagesurrey link www.villagevancouver.ca/group/village-surrey (but you have to become a villagevancouver member first which is without any obligations). Please state your interest and I will get back to you soon.

 

[mwisejsj]

I just signed up. Don't know what I can do yet, but I'm sure I can do something.

 

[bacchi123]

mwisejsj, nice to see you on village surrey (www.villagevancouver.ca/group/village-surrey). I am hoping we could meet in the next 1-2 weeks to address this and other similar issues. Surrey has one of the worst laws for backyard chickens requiring 1 acre / chicken coop. I don't know the other details yet but know that this is worse than the other surrounding municipalities despite our generally bigger average lots - which means less dense population and should allow for, if anything, a smaller area / chicken coop compared to more densely populated municipalities.

One idea would be to use one of the small farmers in the area who could bring chickens and a coop for demonstration as well as selling eggs at the farmer's market. This way we could help encourage folks to raise chickens in their backyards (e.g., even as far as building the coops, and finding the right chickens using other local resources especially by communitarian events such as neighborhood fund-raising, local school involvement, chicken coop design and materials donations including from recycled materials, community work parties, etc.). Once the interest grows and the unreasonably prohibitive nature of the city bylaws are recognized by a growing constituency, we could then help to change those also.

I hope other backyard chicken enthusiasts and lovers of food autonomy and security will join us soon.